Seeding
by Dessa
Summary: Youji catches Omi up late at night when he comes home, what is the chibi doing?


Seeding

Youji was surprised to see a light on under the apartment door next to his, when he fumbled up the stairs at who knows when. Smiling, he quietly turned the knob, knowing he'd catch his youngest teammate asleep at the computer.

However, when he'd opened the door, instead of a sleeping chibi, it was a bleary-eyed chibi staring intently at the computer screen. "Bishounen?" he asked.

Omi startled and looked to the door. "Youji-kun?" Omi was too asleep to complain about the older assassin's nickname.

"What are you still doing up at this hour? You should be in bed."

Omi blushed. "I have to finish this download," he told him.

"Can't you just leave it running, and it'll be finished in the morning? That's what you usually do, isn't it?" Youji got an evil grin on his face, and walked over to Omi. "Or is it something you don't want the rest of us to know about? You've still got a year before you can legally watch that stuff, Bishounen."

"Youji-kun…" Omi warned. "Aya-kun said he doesn't want my computer being left on all night anymore. Too easy for someone to break in and get on it, I guess… But there aren't many seeders left, and I don't want to miss this episode!"

"Eh?" Youji vaguely remembered Aya's warning to the younger boy, but he didn't quite understand what he was talking about.

Omi sighed. "It's peer-to-peer. The 'seeders' are people who have the whole file. You download the file from them, and from anyone else who has more of the file than you. The more people who are seeding, the faster the download goes."

Youji looked at the file Omi had pointed at, and saw that the number listed under 'seeds' was indeed pretty low. Then he noticed another file, which read 'seeds = 0, peers = 1'. "What's that?"

"Oh, that's something I downloaded for Aya-kun earlier. It's an American procedural show… He thinks we might be able to get hints on how to cover our tracks from it."

"So why does it say zero seeds?"

"I'm already done. I'm the only seeder right now. The one peer means that one person is downloading it from me. It's probably almost done."

Youji nodded absently. Not for the first time was he glad that they had the chibi to do all the computer stuff for them. They'd be lost if it were him doing it.

Omi stifled a yawn. "Finally! It's done!"

"Then off to bed with you."

"Demo, I don't know if the peer was able to download the whole file!"

Youji was gently leading Omi to his bed. "Then they can finish it in the morning," he told the boy, as he covered him up. "I just have to hit 'shut down' on the computer, right?"

Omi nodded. He knew that there was no way that he'd be able to stay awake any longer anyway.

"Oyasumi, Bishounen," Youji said, hitting the button on the computer that would safely shut it down.

"Hai, hai…" came the lazy response, the voice already far enough into sleep that he wouldn't last much longer.

Youji smiled as he paused by the door, and flipped off the lights. Then he headed to his own apartment next door.

~*~*~*~*~

"Scheiße!"

Schuldig looked up as he heard the word coming from down the hall. He'd been out late, and had just gotten back. It wasn't that the word wasn't used in the Schwarz household (it was used often, in fact), but it was usually him using it, not Nagi, whom the voice had belonged to.

Schuldig padded down the hall to Nagi's room, and peeked in. "Nagi? What's wrong? What are you doing up this late?"

Nagi turned to look at Schuldig. The man must be too drunk to use his powers safely, for him to have to ask. "I was downloading a file for Crawford."

"So? What happened, the computer crash?" Schuldig didn't even register the thought that Nagi's computer was too good for that.

"No," the boy replied sourly.

"Can't you just use your powers to 'move' the rest of the file?"

Nagi sighed. "It doesn't work like that. I can't move something that doesn't physically exist."

"Then what happened?"

"The last seeder just stopped seeding. And I was at 99%, too!"

Schuldig had no clue what a 'seeder' was. "And that means…"

Nagi turned to Schuldig exasperated. "No seeder means no downloading. I have to wait for someone to seed again. And no finished download means Crawford'll be on my case tomorrow."

Schuldig snickered. "Tough luck, chibi," he said, swaggering out the door. "Have fun!"

Nagi grumbled and telekinetically slammed the door shut, not caring if he woke anyone up. He'd just blame it on Schuldig anyway.


End file.
